Poke the Box

The Monster Engine is one of the best ideas I’ve come across. It’s a book, demonstration, lecture and gallery exhibition created by Dave Devries. The premise is simple: children draw pictures of monsters and Devries paints them realistically. According to the website, the idea was born in 1998 when Devries took an interest in his niece’s doodles. As a comic addict, Devires wondered if he could use color, texture and shading to bring his niece’s drawings to life.

But Devries had a larger goal: he wanted to always see things as a child. Growing up, to be sure, has its benefits. Age doesn’t necessarily squander our creative juices, but when we make the leap from elementary school to middle school our worldview becomes more realistic and cynical. A study conducted several years ago by Darya Zabelina and Michael Robinson of North Dakota State University gives us a simple remedy.
Brené Brown. The power of vulnerability. Listening to shame. The Browser. The Jig Is Up. After five years pursuing the social-local-mobile dream, we need a fresh paradigm for technology startups.

Finnish teenagers performing digital ennui in 1996 2006. Reuters. We're there. The future that visionaries imagined in the late 1990s of phones in our pockets and high-speed Internet in the air: Well, we're living in it. "The third generation of data and voice communications -- the convergence of mobile phones and the Internet, high-speed wireless data access, intelligent networks, and pervasive computing -- will shape how we work, shop, pay bills, flirt, keep appointments, conduct wars, keep up with our children, and write poetry in the next century.
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Edge. The Impending Demise Of The University. Edutopia. Five Future Technologies. Teleporting, flying cars and Back To The Future style hover-boards. These have all been promised to us within the next few years, but there is little hope of seeing them any time soon.

These far-fetched technologies fill us with excitement about what the future may hold, inspiring generations of dreamers to learn math, science and engineering. But what about the technologies that will help these aspiring inventors, scientists and engineers learn?
Getting Smart. Smart Teachers. EdTech An EdChat Soundtrack: 60 Songs to Keep Your Class Jammin’ Pretend this: every day of your teaching career there is a gigantic boombox (Yes, I was raised in the '80s) hovering just above your head.

I get very nervous when I hear education reformists and politicians tout how "incredible" the flipped-classroom model, or how it will "solve" many of the problems of education. It doesn't solve anything. It is a great first step in reframing the role of the teacher in the classroom.
MIT+K12. Mashable. How Higher Education Is Going Digital. People are talking about digital tech's opportunity to improve the classroom.

Much of the discussion has been focused on digital textbooks. Apple's recent announcement of iBooks for education has caused a stir over whether texts delivered on an expensive and propriety device like the iPad are really feasible. Meanwhile at the university level, many schools are dipping their toes in the promise of a digital future, and it's not just about textbooks. The folks at OnlineUniversities.com have compiled the infographic below that explores the pros and cons of various platforms and technologies that have found their way into the halls of higher ed.

SEE ALSO: Why iPad Textbooks Are Still Too Expensive for Schools [INFOGRAPHIC] Is your college or university dabbling in digital texts or online coursework?
Seth Godin. All artists are self-taught. Organized bravery. Technology Review. People Power 2.0. The force of laughter: Graffiti on a wall in Tripoli represents the Libyan leader, Colonel Qaddafi, as a fleeing rat.

After weeks of skirmishes in the Nafusa Mountains southwest of Tripoli, Sifaw Twawa and his brigade of freedom fighters are at a standstill. It’s a mid-April night in 2011, and Twawa’s men are frightened. Lightly armed and hidden only by trees, they are a stone’s throw from one of four Grad 122-millimeter multiple-rocket launchers laying down a barrage on Yefren, their besieged hometown. These weapons can fire up to 40 unguided rockets in 20 seconds. Each round carries a high-­explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 40 pounds. Two friends are on the line, via a Skype conference call. Indeed, civilians have “rushed the field,” says David Kilcullen, author of The Accidental Guerrilla, a renowned expert on counterinsurgency and a former special advisor to General David Petraeus during the Iraq War.